urbanfantasyfandomcom-20200214-history
User talk:Merrystar
Hi Merrystar, thnks for writing me. You are the first person to visit here, that I know of) since I started editing three weeks ago. I just have not gotten to any stand alones yet. I have been using a list from Goodreads titled: "Best Urban Fantasy Series". I chose that list to start because Urban tantasy is daunting enough without going through lists of individual books. Besides those lists are raerely just UF anyway. I could definitely use some help editing and creating pages. If you want to start adding stand-alones, help yourself. Frankly, I don't know that many stand-alones. I have made over 3,000 edits in three weeks, and there is still a lot to add. Please help. You will also notice that I left most of them incomplete. That is so that I could keep creating pages that are formatted so that other people could help me once they start showing up. Besides, I haven't read a lot of these. so I can only fill out data I find on line. This hast taken me hours and hours looking stuff up. I happened upon this wiki by accident. someone else started it and vanished. There were four pages started—titles only and not filled out. I was jut going to fill htose out, then I keep making more. I asked for admin status but i have not heard back yet... starting to get frustrated. I want to get this site out there so mor people will come. I want to add categories, and spruce up the page. I can't do anything. just edit pages. It's starting to feel like an exercise in futility if they don't answer soon. I envision this being a much more comprehensive site of reference for readers. I'm putting info on the pages that I have trouble finding when I'm researchign new reads. I've always wanted a site that wasn't just "opinion" but solid information. So, that's my guiding light—information and resources. Whatever you're willing to do, I would be very much appreciative. Stand-alones sound great! Name me a good one and I will start a page for it, to make a category to have some place for all the stand-alones to go. Then you can fill out. Thanks for wrting me. Hopestar (talk) 04:50, October 22, 2013 (UTC) Hi, back with a grin... I accidentally stumbled onto the fact that I had admin rights directly after I wrote my note to you...LoL! THANKS. Thanks, also, for the tips on books an links. I intended ot further explor Goodreads other UF lists after I finised the series list. I figured they woul likely have a stand-alone list. Some of those are found in fantasy section. I have Sunshine, had it fo ryear and then never wanted to read it after I bought it... I like series. I have a humongous TBR pile. So, I'll get to it eventually. It was highly recommended to me. Sunshine is in the Literature section of the booksstore, not the Fantasy & Sci-fi section—my alternate home away from home, sometimes. I planned to add Neil Gaimen's books at some point, but I wasn't sure what to do with him. He seems more Fantasy that Urban Fantasy—a more specific sub-genre. But I saw him come up on a UF list or two, so I guess I'm wrong. Plus, not a series, so I was at a loss. Now, having talked to you I have a better idea how to approach his work. UF it is vast. Parent authors would be those like Laurel K. Hamilton and Kilm Hamilton. Grand Parents would be those like P.N. Elrod. Grand so jus twoke up... TTYL Jill Hopestar (talk) 01:57, October 23, 2013 (UTC) I just wrote this nice messages and then I used my touch pad,—which I do not know how to use at all but my mouse stopped working and I have no choice—to hit publish button. And the page flipped, that's the third time to today I lost everythign I wrote. Anyway, Here's the page I made for your Emma Bull book: War for the Oaks. Fill or leave blank what ever you wish. I know you're busy. Change anything you think needs changing on the format... I'm playing htis by ear. I put a bunch of links to start you off, but I didn't do any character searches, or any more detaqiled searches. The book sounds a bit like Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely series and also a Modern Fairy Tale by Holly Black. Both are considered to by YA… I read both and loved both. Now I am really tired and I'm calling it quits. Hopestar (talk) 07:52, October 24, 2013 (UTC) : Actually, the truth is that I haven't written any of the descriptions... I copy-paste them (into source mode) from other places when I can find good ones. I don't paick anything that has a spoiler. I would take them out if it did. I always credit all my sources by dragging ICON next to the url from the page (in visual mode)—that usually contains a lable of what it is...I delete superfulous words. Example, say I am crediting the cover blurb for a book... : Goodreads | Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows, #1) by Kim Harrison — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists : Goodreads | Dead Witch Walking : Blurbs are found on sites that have bibliographies like Goodreads and Fantastic Fiction. : BTW, I don't consider book cover blurbs as a discripton for a series, but sometimes that's all I have, so I put a seperate place on my series pages for the "First Book Cover Blurb". I have a terrible memory, so even the ones i've read I often have to search for a description on line. Also. I hate book cover blurbs for trying to learn what a book is about. So I prefer an outside version for the description spot. : Either I, or somebody, could write it, or I can search online fron one. As long as it's different from the blurb, provides a general overview that could help someone know if they want to read it or not but does not give any spoilers. It doesn't need to be long or detailed, just descriptive. This can be tricky because reviewers usually get too long winded and tell too much—and include opinion, this is not a review site, it's an information site. : I find descriptions at all kinds of places. It's usually in my search for links that I run across them. Author sites usually have the best, Puplisher sites, some review sites, even place where you can download or buy a book. I even find description when I glance over the reader reviews on Goodreads—those I credit by opening up the review in a seperate page (link on bottom of review). : I know all this because I have been keeping running lists for a number of years. It started by printing out reading order lists and keeping them on me so I'd know the next book in a series. It grew into a research list for possible new reads. It comes in helpfeul when I go to the anual Library sale, so I know what I have and don't have and might want to read. : I read all kinds of UF that I find either in Fantasy, YA or Romance. I'm not a "Romance" reader, but there are some good UF series on that side of the aisle—they're called PNR or Paranormal Romance. Mostly I read straight-up UF. I've always been a fan of Film Noir, being a classic film buff, so the dark grittiness of UF fits my taste. PNR has the emotions I like. And YA has that youthful exuberance... though that can sometimes be too overbearing. I get frustrated with a lot of YA when it reduces itself to a bunch of teens running around frantic or carry-on with that dated teen lingo. But, you're right, there are a lot of great YA or even pre-teen books. Harry Potter is supposed to be a kids book, but It's so much more than that. I discovered it before the films were being made and turned my eldest granddaughter on to it. HP books never talk down to the kids and the grownups dig it too—and they grow up as the readers do. It's pre-teen and YA all ages. YA covers all manner of styles and genres. Some of it—a lot of it—is worthwhile reading by all ages. Some of it not so much. I love most of what I've read and get frustrated by others. : Publishers make decisions on how to categorize books based on how they feel they can market it. The Lord of the Rings was never intended to be three books, the publishers decided that based on the high cost o fpaper at the time a the fact that there was not Fantasy category at the time... they had no idea if it would sell, they had serious doubts. So they split it up and the titles were decided by the publishers, not Tolkien. All they wanted was a sequel to the Hobbit (1935) which was as popular as Harry Potter. It took Tolkien 15 years to write LotR having turned it into his great myth for Engand borrowing heavily from his own writings (found in the Similrillion). (Of course he was also teaching Old English full time at Oxford.) It sold so fast that the first volume was reprinted before the second was scheduled for printing and fans were clammering for more. Each generation has found its own voice in the works and it inspiried an entire section of fantasy in every bookstore. Tolkien groups, including mine, celebrate his birthday every Jan 3rd all around the world. : I have guessed my own answer to your question, that if there is a teen in the story, they market it to teens irregardless of whether its more mature or not. I think that may be why they started calling it Young Adult instead of Teen. : Babbling way too much, I have a lot to do today. So, I'd better get on with it. Grandson is begging my attention. : Have a great Halloween. It's Harry Dresden's birthday! Cheers! : Jill : Hopestar (talk) 21:32, October 31, 2013 (UTC)